On Dita Von Teese

But first – Richard Branson, in person… kind of a fox! And a little anecdote about Chad Kroeger of Nickelback at the very, very end.

Dita is tiny but not tiny, does that make sense? She’s very short, maybe 5 ft 2 and slender but not emaciated and when she gets naked her legs are surprisingly cut – great muscle definition, no little twigs supporting a pair of huge knockers and in spite of that corset 16 inch waist thing, she’s actually very well proportioned. And flawless. Even under a pound of foundation, you can see immediately, she has the most amazing skin. All over her body.

Am fascinated by her hair. She was fascinated by her own hair too. Kept asking if it was ok even though it didn’t seem to move. She doesn’t seem to move. When Dita’s not dancing she’s eerily immobile, kind of like Nicole Kidman’s forehead but all over. During the press conference she licked her lips after looking like a mannequin for 10 minutes and it freaked me out. Speaks in hushed intimate tones with the cadence of a woman from an era past. Very polite. Very posed. Very intense eye contact. She is to the end 100% always in character.

But back to her body – her body is sick. Somehow she’s managed to work her way in to a 16 inch waist corset which is how she opens her show, debuting a new routine called The Black Swan. Big deal made about how it was the premiere and when you think of someone rehearsing and presenting a whole new dance piece, you’re expecting some crazy ass moves, even acrobatics.

Such is not the case with Dita Von Teese. Because really it’s just glorified stripping. Not even aerobic or athletic stripping. Just old school stripping. Only labelled burlesque. Which is classy stripping. Almost an art form. So they say.

But honestly, what you get after paying a thousand dollars a seat is a beautiful woman taking her clothes off. They are vintage clothes, of course, but they’re still clothes. And they still come off. Slowly. And teasingly. And her bustier detaches in 6 stages. With a complicated set of clasps that she deftly removes to the beat of the music. But for all intents and purposes, at the heart of it, she’s just getting half naked, and then she proceeds to get more naked, only after a while she pulls out a couple of lovely fans and waves them around until the grand exposé which of course is a set of amazing breasts, fake but perfectly shaped, nipples concealed in nude colour glitter, standing up on their own but with a lovely lovely slight sag and an ass that is so delicious you want to smear peanut butter all over it and eat it with an apple.

And then… and then she sashays over to the massive black swan in the middle of the stage and pats the gold beak from which water starts running all over her body. So she’s lathering it into her hair and all over her torso and writhing a little, and you’re sitting in a ballroom 700 strong and all of a sudden you’re back in your living room, watching a video with your parents when a love scene comes on and it’s like ick…I’m watching two people doing it with my parents sitting next to me on a couch. And you can’t make eye contact with anyone around you because you don’t want to lock eyes in that uncomfortable moment when either of you wonder what kinds of dirty thoughts are going through your heads so you force your eyes to stay riveted on Diva getting wet and naked on stage and then you wonder whether or not people will notice that you’re riveted and think you’re a perv but you can’t look down because you don’t want to look like a prude either.

Only 10 minutes later, it’s over. She’s flattened her back against her Swan Lover with one leg bent at the knee, knee raised up to her waist, mouth open looking suggestively out at the crowd, totally owning her close up, a Goddess in a room full of mortals and the only thing I could think of was: what the F*CK was she doing with Marilyn Manson???

Afterwards, with some distance between the experience, comes the admiration. Just short of respect but admiration nonetheless. Dita Von Teese has somehow made stripping “exclusive” and “elite” and similar to any product in any other industry, she’s taking something that’s been around forever, branded it her own, and turned it into a powerhouse business. Arty stripping is her business. And she’s never been called a slut.

Fascinating, non?

Best of all though? Right before Dita unpeeled her dress, Chad Kroeger who was sitting at the table next to me, got up with his buddy to go the bar.